1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to communications networks. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for debugging network protocol errors using an XML document.
2. Description of Related Art
Most network application programs exchange data using data packets. Typically, a packet has a specific structure that incorporates internal fields that clearly delineate the packets' different contents. Using this structural representation, a user may devise algorithms that may be used to effectuate network simulation testing to debug network problems etc. The algorithms may be devised using a markup language. A markup language is a language that allows additional text or tags that are invisible to users to be inserted into a document. Thus, the tags are not part of the content of the document but rather enhance the document. For example, the tags may be used to structure the document or to add hypertext capability to the document etc.
One of the markup languages that is particularly well suited for this task is the eXtensible Markup Language or XML. XML is a language that is especially designed for Web documents. It allows designers to create their own customized tags, enabling definition, transmission, validation, and interpretation of data between applications and between organizations.
Consequently, what is needed is an apparatus and method of using XML documents to diagnose network protocol errors.